Wool opener



Oct 23, 1934. w. w. WINDLE WOOL OPENER Filed Dec. 8, 1933 Patented Oct. 23, 1934 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 1 Claim.

This invention has for its principal object the provision of means whereby the heavy particles of wool mixed with other material, such as clods of manure, are broken up and reduced in size as they pass over the breaker cylinder and to provide means whereby this process is repeated and the wool and clods will be delivered through the same chute.

Other objects and. advantages of the invention will appear hereinafter.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawing, in which Fig. 1 is a side view, partly brokenaway and in section, of a tag wool opener of ordinary type 16 with a preferred form of this invention applied thereto;

, Fig. 2 is a side view, and

Figs. 3, 4 and 5 are respectively a plan, av front view, and a rear view of one of the blades on the cylinder.

The wool is fed into the machine by an apron 10 into a pair of pressure rolls 11 which force the wool in the usual way into the casing 12. In this casing is a cylinder 13 carried by a shaft 14 and the shaft is mounted in bearings 15 on the outside of the casing. The shaft preferably is slightly below the level of the bight between the feed rolls 11 to allow the wool to be deposited on the upper surfaces of the blades. The shaft is driven by suitable means, as through a pulley 16 on the shaft.

The cylinder 13 is provided with comparatively heavy radial concave blades 17 projecting therei from. As the cylinder rotates in the direction of the arrow, the wool is fed to it in a substantially radial direction. The speed of rotation of the cylinder is sufficient to throw allheavy particles off by centrifugal force. This is a machine for handling raw wool which comes into the factory as it is sheared from the animals and this wool contains manure matted in and forming large and small clods.

The essential feature of this invention is the provision of an inner wall of the casing composed of alternating surfaces20 which are designed to receive the clods against them from the cylinder and intermediate walls 21 which are merely for the purpose of connecting the several walls 20 in such a way as to leave each space between two walls open to allow the clods to be thrown all the way from the blades to the walls 20. These walls 20 are all located in such position that the clods will hit them in a direction substantially normal to their surfaces and inclined enough to insure that the broken clods will fall away from them freely. In other words they are perpendicular to the tangent lines to the cylinder teeth at certain points around the circumference. For this reason they have the most efficient result in breaking up the clods.

The walls 20 are alllocated directly over the cylinder so that the clods drop back from them directly on the blades. If they are still large enough to be thrown the necessary distance by the rotation of the cylinder they will be thrown against the next surface 20 and further broken up. The final result is that all the clods and wool will be delivered at the opposite side of the casing down through a chute 22 and will be ready for the next process. It will be seen therefore that the wool in its raw state is reduced to a condition in which it can be taken up by the next machine and the wool separated from the foreign matter in a much better manner than has been the case with the wool openers previously on the market. The added expense of manufacture is comparatively slight and it involves no additional moving parts.

Having thus described my invention and the S0 advantages thereof, I do not wish to be limited to the details herein disclosed, otherwise than as set forth in the claim, butwhat I claim is:--

In a wool opener, the combination with a pair of feed rolls and a cylinder rotatable on an axis slightly below the line of feed of the wool between the rolls, said cylinder being provided with radial blades spaced equally throughout its circumference, of a wall partly surrounding the cylinder and comprising alternating surfaces nearly at right angles to tangents from the cylinder at the ends of its blades and slanting to discharge clods striking them, and substantially tangential connecting surfaces between each two adjacent right angle surfaces, whereby the clods of wool thrown off from the cylinder will be thrown directly against the surfaces in a direction at right angles to said surfaces and be broken up.

WINFRED W. WINDLE. 

